Freezing dried beans after cooking

HH62

I'm really getting into eating lentils, butter beans etc. I do tend to use tinned ones but I know that dried ones are cheaper. I live alone and it does seem a hassle to boil up a pan of butter beans for nearly an hour just for a couple of portions.
Can I cook the beans and then freeze what I don't need to use just then?

Serena51

Oh yes. Once they are cooked just bag them up and pop in the freezer. I do this with Asda organic ones as I can get a bag for about 80p and this is the cooked equivalent of 5 drained tins. Just one tin of organic beans in water is nearly that price.

I have a pressure cooker and this makes cooking really easy, like you I am on my own and it is so convenient to just take a bag from the freezer. When I originally started to batch cook and freeze beans, I used to open freeze them and then bag up but now I just bag them once they're drained and cold enough.

good luck with it.

SEE

Serena51 wrote: »

Oh yes. Once they are cooked just bag them up and pop in the freezer. I do this with Asda organic ones as I can get a bag for about 80p and this is the cooked equivalent of 5 drained tins. Just one tin of organic beans in water is nearly that price.

I have a pressure cooker and this makes cooking really easy, like you I am on my own and it is so convenient to just take a bag from the freezer. When I originally started to batch cook and freeze beans, I used to open freeze them and then bag up but now I just bag them once they're drained and cold enough.

good luck with it.

I freeze beans, both fresh and dried. I whizz them through the salad spinner to take out all excess moisture before freezing, and I do the same with the cauli and cabbage. You'd be suprised how much water is in them before you whizz:D

HH62

Thank you both! Much easier to cook the big batch and freeze.

Justamum

I've recently tried to sort out my freezer - I found putting things in bags extremely irritating! I found the 2.6l size click-lock tubs nicely fit a 500g bag of cooked pulses.

Ephemera

lol I cooked up a huge pan of mixed beans and then portioned them out in various-sized portions into bags and froze them. I preferred to leave some water in the bags before freezing to protect them from freezer burn - it's up to you at the end of it all.

Hope that helps and enjoy!

Eph xx

Olliebeak

Great ideas there - we lurve Butter Beans but I always forget to pre-soak them - will cook up a HUGE batch on Saturday and freeze for future use . While I'm at it, I'll cook up a batch of Organic Mixed Beans at the same time .

nopot2pin

A while back, I bought reduced price frozen kidney beans from my local tesco....
I found them incredibly hard, like bullets
I have to say.... the tinned variety are soooo much better in my opinion.
Maybe I just got a bad batch.....
But, for those who are boiling beans.....
Make sure they are fully cooked, and cooled before freezing

thriftlady_2

nopot2pin wrote: »

A while back, I bought reduced price frozen kidney beans from my local tesco....
I found them incredibly hard, like bullets

I've been cooking and freezing dried beans for years -they're only hard if they aren't cooked long enough. Cook them until they are as soft as you want them.

Justamum

nopot2pin wrote: »

A while back, I bought reduced price frozen kidney beans from my local tesco....
I found them incredibly hard, like bullets
I have to say.... the tinned variety are soooo much better in my opinion.
Maybe I just got a bad batch.....

I've had the same problem with tinned beans before now.

I don't like those bags of mixed beans because they all have different cooking times and when some are cooked others are still hard.

HH62

I got a tin of kidney beans from Lidl that were like bullets. I ended up binning them because kidney beans are apparently toxic if they haven't been boiled for a long time.
I've always been too wary to boil my own kidney beans because of this,so I only buy tinned ones. But it's a bit worrying when they are hard. How do we know they've been boiled for long enough?